by John Spritzler
February 14, 2010
Zionists try to refute the Goldstone Report by arguing, "Unlike Hamas,
Israel does not intentionally kill civilians." They emphasize the difference
between intentional and accidental ("collateral") killing of civilians. [See,
for example, this video:
http://www.youtube.
This difference between intentional and accidental killing is, however, only
relevant when the aim of the violence is a just one. Accidentally killing
civilians in the course of using violence to stop oppression is one thing.
Doing it in the course of using violence to oppress people is a very different
thing.
In the case of Israeli violence, the question is not whether Israel
intentionally kills civilians. The question is: What is the purpose of
Israel's violence?
Israel
uses violence today to prevent the Palestinian refugees from returning to the
homes and territory (inside the part of Palestine now called Israel) from
which they were
expelled by Zionist violence in the past. They were expelled for only one
reason--they were not Jewish. This violence has an unjust purpose: ethnic
cleansing. Its purpose is to ensure that the population of Israel will be at
least 80% Jewish, which is what Israel's
leaders say it must be in order to be a Jewish state. Violence in defense
of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state is violence in defense of
ethnic cleansing. When this violence kills somebody, no matter whether on
purpose or accidentally, and no matter whether the victim is a civilian or a
soldier, it is 100% unjustifiable homicide. It is a criminal act.
There are two separate questions involved here. The first question is this:
If Hamas does something morally wrong, does that in any way justify Israel's
denial of the right of return to millions of Palestinian refugees? The answer
is clearly, No. For example, would anybody claim that nineteenth century
slavery in the U.S. was justified by the fact that some slaves (like Nat
Turner in 1831) wrongly killed white children during their resistance to
slavery?
The second question is: Does Hamas intentionally kill civilians? The latest
report (seen by this author) is that Hamas had withdrawn its earlier
apology for Israeli civilians killed by its rockets. This suggests that the
killing was intentional. If Hamas intentionally kills civilians, then that is
wrong. But it is a wrong that in no way justifies Israel's violence for the
purpose of denying Palestinian refugees their right of return. (Furthermore,
if Israel did grant the right of return and compensation for stolen
property--as Germany did for Jews-- then those individual Palestinians, in
Hamas or not, who continued to advocate violence against Israeli civilians
would no longer have enough support from the Palestinian people to carry it
out; instead Palestinians would want them to be arrested as criminals.)
Some anti-Zionists argue that the most morally relevant question is: Who kills more civilians, Israel or Hamas? This is wrong, and the Zionists easily win the argument when it is framed this way. How come? Zionists argue that accidentally killing a thousand people in the course of fighting a just war is morally defensible, whereas intentionally or accidentally killing only one person in the course of fighting an unjust war is morally indefensible. Would anybody, for example, argue that if the Nazis had killed fewer people than the Allies then the Nazis would have been morally justified in their violence? The Zionists win this argument when anti-Zionists merely contrast the numbers of civilians killed by each side, because the contrasting numbers deflect attention from the fact that it is the purpose of Israel's violence, not its magnitude, that makes it immoral.